A little boy named Muawiyah went with his sister Asma to their grandparents farm for a holiday. Muawiyah took his slingshot and practiced hitting targets in the woods with no success. Getting discouraged, he trudged home for supper. He spied Grandma’s pet duck and impulsively took a shot at it. He hit the duck and killed it.

In a panic, he hid the dead duck in a woodpile only to see his sister watching! Asma had seen it all but said nothing. After supper, Grandma asked Asma to help with the dishes. Asma said, ‘Muawiyah wants to help,’ and whispered to him, ‘Remember the duck?’ So Muawiyah did the dishes.

The next day Grandpa asked who wanted to come fishing. Grandma said that she needed Asma to help make lunch. Asma smiled and said that Muawiyah wanted to help in the kitchen and whispered to him, ‘Remember the duck?’ Asma went fishing and Muawiyah stayed behind. After several days of doing both his and Asma’s work, Muawiyah could stand it no longer and confessed to his Grandma that he’d killed the duck. She hugged him and said, ‘I know. I saw the whole thing, but because I love you I forgave you. I wanted to see how long you’d let Asma make a slave out of you.’

We commit sins and think no one has seen. Then the devil keeps us as slaves because of our sins. Once we realise Allah saw all our sins, we should turn to him in repentance. He loves us and is always ready to forgive us. For how long are we going to remain slaves to the devil?